Newtown's wake-up call on firearms

It’s common sense that putting guns in schools will create a culture of fear that does nothing to keep our children safe. It’s common sense that background checks should be rigorous and required, not just an occasional formality. It’s common sense that nobody needs a military-style assault weapon or high-capacity magazines to defend their home or hunt for recreation. It’s common sense that we can retain our Second Amendment rights without giving up our right to live, work and go to school in peace and security.

Common-sense gun control measures could include eliminating the private sale loophole to require universal criminal background checks for those purchasing weapons; renewing and strengthening the federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004; and placing limits on high-capacity magazines, like those used in Tucson and Newtown, that allow a shooter to inflict unimaginable carnage in a matter of minutes.

The NRA has stifled this common-sense debate for too long. In doing so, it ignores the concerns of the American people and even its own membership. Republican pollster Frank Luntz, working with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, polled gun owners and NRA members and found that the vast majority are in favor of measures that the organization has fought against, including tighter background check requirements and mandatory reporting of lost and stolen guns.

Two weeks after the Tucson shooting, still grieving and in shock, I had the heartbreaking honor of attending the State of the Union address as the guest of President Barack Obama. I hoped then that we could talk seriously about common-sense gun control measures. But our federal elected officials did nothing. In just the past two years, the United States has seen 14 mass shootings in which 185 people have been killed or injured. Thousands more have died from gun violence on a smaller scale, a massacre in slow motion. Newtown was a costly wake-up call. This time, let’s not ignore it.

Daniel Hernandez Jr. serves on the governing board of the Sunnyside Unified School District in Tucson, Ariz., and is a member of People For the American Way Foundation’s Young Elected Officials Network. In the spring of 2011, he was an intern in the office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.